Spiral Cut Hot Dogs

I did a very poor job of capturing these. Probably because my order of focus when we are grilling is:

Outside!

Cold drink!

Food!

Documentation.

But I wanted to let you know about these because they are pretty cool.

To make them you put a skewer through the length of a hot dog (if you are prone to immature humor there is plenty of room for pain jokes here, clearly), then slice a long spiral through the hot dog cutting all the way down to the skewer. Grill it, remove from the skewer, stretch it out a bit and, ta da!, the hot dog is long enough to fit a bun. Also you might find that ketchup stays inside the bun as you’re eating. Chow has a quick video tip on making these: Why you should spiral cut your hot dog for grilling. They take the skewer out before grilling which actually makes way more sense than the way I’ve been doing it. Oops.

I made these back when you first posted the Gawker link and, fwiw, actually thought man, these would be much easier to grill if I’d left the skewer in! I found that the spirals got stuck in the grill bars when I tried to flip.

I spent part of last night spiral cutting dogs for a bbq this afternoon. Now I wish I’d left the skewers in, but I shall report back on whether my grill has a tight enough weave to keep them from getting stuck!

This has become my default preparation for hot dogs and sausages. With practice, it becomes much easier… and better looking!
I usually do this to cocktail-sized ‘dogs for my toddler’s bento. They look even cuter when they are tiny.
Glad you tried and liked them!